


Oh Look, They Get Stupider

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Face Punching, M/M, N/J/P is just kind of implied, sheer utter ridiculousness, teenage boys being idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Percy's insensitive, Jason punches a face, Nico runs off, there's some stupidly rom-com-ey dialogue, and the narrator talks like a 19-year-old girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh Look, They Get Stupider

**Author's Note:**

> Er, I'll be honest, I spent most of the time I was writing this trying to decide whether it was actually the worst thing I've written all year or just ridiculous.  
> (It's the narrator, I swear. I don't know what's going on with the narration in this fic.)  
> The general response, though, has been overwhelmingly positive over on tumblr, so I elected to post it here too.  
> If nothing else, it's a nice break from all the depressing stuff.

No one but Nico is exactly sure when Jason and Percy slipped from calling each other Grace and Jackson in conversation to Superman and Aquaman (or when they're feeling more creative, Peter Pan and an ever-rotating array of water-related nicknames).

Although, to be fair, the shift from calling each other by first names to consistently using surnames caught everybody by surprise as well.

Nico was there for that, too.

(Side note: the sudden, intense closeness of the Baby Big Three – as dubbed by Clarisse La Rue – is somewhere between awesome and terrifying. Everyone at both Camps agrees.)

This story should probably start with that, actually. It'll make a lot more sense if it does.

 

Percy proposed to Annabeth last week.

He'd spent every waking moment since talking about it.

Nico and Jason were his latest victims. They'd been putting up with it for over an hour now while they trained, and Jason's eyes had been on Nico the whole time, watching him get more and more tense as the conversation went on.

Needless to say, neither of them were really performing their best. Percy hadn't noticed.

The sentence that Jason would later blame for Percy's broken nose was: “Nico, you'll be a groomsman, right? I'd ask you to be best man, but _Grover_ , y'know?”

Nico's carefully constructed mask of disinterest started to crack. Jason took that as his cue to punch the unsuspecting son of Poseidon in the face.

When Percy's response was a shocked, “What the fuck was that for, Grace?” Jason threw another punch.

Nico dragged Jason away from Percy by the back of his shirt. “You're not _helping_ , Grace. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but _stop_.”

“Nico, he's -”

“An idiot, but he doesn't know what's going on and you're not going to change that by breaking his face,” Nico reasoned. “Seriously, cut it out.”

From there, the general tone of the relationship between all three big three boys went from casual enough to barely there, stiff and formal.

(That's Nico, Percy, and Jason respectively, by the way. Nico was utterly mortified, because it was after that chat that Percy _finally_ figured out how the younger boy felt, and furious with Jason for the same reason, so he sort of disappeared for six months. Percy didn't quite know how to handle Nico or what to make of Jason, so there was a certain discomfort and general awkwardness to all of his interactions with them in the same time period. Jason was apologetic toward Nico – who, as previously mentioned, was avoiding him – and still fed up with Percy for his ignorance, so he fell back on formality so he didn't royally screw anything else up.)

This carried on for six months.

For half a year, the three sons of the Big Three were barely on speaking terms.

 

The world – the Camps, that is – decided as a whole that this was probably the most terrifying thing the three could possibly do. 

_They were turning into their fathers._

You see why this was a problem?

 

The incident that brought the whole thing back around was about 80% three teenage boys recognising that they were being a little bit stupid about the whole thing and 20% meddling.

The meddling came from two separate, unrelated places, and had (remarkably) not been coordinated.

Persephone sent Nico up into the world because she thought he was spending too much time with the dead. His relationship with her had improved somewhat since the last time she'd turned him into a plant. Although to be honest he wasn't quite sure if she was sending him back to the land of the living out of concern or annoyance.

On the Upper World side of things, it was Annabeth who forced the whole thing. She thought it was bad for the still-precarious diplomatic situation for the Camps for Percy and Jason to fight like this, so she'd taken to sending them out on errand quests together to force them to interact like actual humans.

Er, something close to actual humans. 

Interact, really. Just at all.

 _An-ny-waaays_.

The _boys_ – that is, the completely living very mature young men who Annabeth kept sending off on stupid missions because she thought it would _help_ – were sent off on a Demigod In Distress quest. It was probably just some young half-blood who'd bitten off more than they could chew, and really wouldn't it have made more sense to send somebody who wouldn't just attract a thousand more monsters, _An-na-beth?_

(It's never that. Annabeth's always right about who to send on quests and don't let anybody tell you differently _e v e r_.)

The half-blood they found wasn't some untrained 7th grader.

In fact, they found themselves faces-to-sword with a very angry 15-ish-year-old.

“Woah, Nico!” Percy exclaimed. “It's just us!”

“Yeah, could just you move out of my way, I'm running here,” Nico replied, not actually meeting either of their eyes.

“That's why we're here,” said Jason. “Sent to help and all.”

“Oh, _great_ ,” said Nico. “You've got an _awesome_ track record with 'helping.'”

“Are you still mad at me for that?” Jason asked as the three of them turned to face down the impressive horde of monsters that had been chasing Nico. “It's been months!”

“It's not like you ever actually apologised,” Nico pointed out.

“Oh my _gods_ , are you two really going to do this now?” snapped Percy after dusting a monster or three.

“ _Yes!_ ”

“Nico, I couldn't just watch you get hurt like that -”

“I'm not a child, Jason! I can handle myself!”

“You looked like _you_ were going to punch him. Or throw up.”

“Then you should have _let me!_ ”

“Uh, guys?” Percy interrupted. “Focus.”

“Shut up, Percy!”

“ _No!_ ” Percy insisted. “Guys, I get it. Nico, you're mad because Jason embarrassed you. Jason, you're being an idiot and refusing to apologise for no reason. Handle it later.”

“You're not _serious_ , are you?” Jason snapped. “You're calling _me_ an idiot? Between the two of us, I'm hardly the one who should be apologising to anyone!”

“I know better than to try to have that conversation in the middle of a battle,” Percy responded.

“Oh, really?” replied Nico. “And here I thought you were just ignoring me.”

“You _ran away_!” Percy said in between monster-vaporisations. “If you'd just – _stop doing that_ – we'd – we'd be okay!”

“You are not making this my fault!”

“Nico!”

“ _Now_ who's distracted,” Jason commented, casually spearing a monster.

“Oh _shut up,_ Jason!”

And almost like Percy's exasperated exclamation was a cue the whole world had been waiting for, their alley fell silent.

“Fine,” said Jason, “fine.”

Percy ignored him. He grabbed Nico by the arm as he tried to disappear.

“Nico, stop.”

“Uh, _no_ ,” said Nico. 

“You can't just leave again,” Percy said. “Hear us out.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, “if you're gonna give us trouble for not apologising or talking to you or whatever, don't go running off as soon as we've got a chance to do it.”

Nico stopped struggling. “Fine. If you're gonna say something, say it now.”

“I'm sorry for punching Percy for you – even though he totally deserved it.”

“He did.”

“I did _not!_ ”

“You did. Anyway, Nico, it wasn't my decision to make, I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“I know,” Nico mumbled. “I wanted to come back, but -” He glanced at Percy, then down at his feet.

“Hey, man, I – I'm sorry,” Percy said, his grip on Nico's arm tightening. “I didn't know. I rubbed the whole Annabeth thing in your face for _years_ – which she has since yelled at me for extensively, by the way, she even called in Thalia and Hazel to help – and I'm _sorry_.” He paused. “Don't – don't run away again, please. I was a pretty shitty friend to you before, even without the whole...” he waved his hand vaguely to indicate... something.

Nico tensed, and for a long moment you wouldn't have been alone if you were waiting for him to re-break Percy's nose.

“Mermaid Man's got a point,” Jason dared suggest, breaking the silence.

“Oh, now you're on _his_ side?” snapped Nico.

Jason shrugged. “I've always been on team Make Nico Happy. It's everyone else's allegiances that keep changing.”

More tense silence.

And then -

_and then_

Nico twisted his arm out of Percy's grip and pulled the two older(?) boys into a tight hug.

“Not a _word_ of this to the others,” he muttered into their shoulders. 

A while later, back at Camp, the three boys sat in the Poseidon cabin. They were all comfortably seated on one of the unoccupied beds, leaning against the wall.

“Y'know, I'm sixteen now,” Nico said.

“Yeah?” said Jason. “You should've mentioned it sooner, we could've had a party or something.”

“ _So_ didn't want a party, 'specially not one thrown by you,” replied Nico. “I really don't care much about birthdays, but _sixteen_. This would've been the year that -”

“The prophecy,” Percy chimed in.

Nico nodded. “'Course, Dad wanted it to be _Bianca_ , not me, but she was already dead by the time you turned sixteen. I was next on the list if you'd -”

“Failed.”

“Yeah, that.”

“I didn't, though. And look, we're all alive and everything,” Percy said.

Nico leaned over and nudged Percy with his shoulder. “Thanks for that. I – I wouldn't have been good at that. Don't think I could've done what you did.”

Percy wrapped his arm around Nico. “Don't worry, it was entirely selfish. I didn't much want to die.”

Nico and Jason cracked up.

 

The next morning, Annabeth walked into Percy's cabin to find the three boys asleep, a tangle of limbs and drooling, having been up 'till the wee hours of the morning talking and catching up. She smiled and backed out of the cabin. She could talk to Percy about plans later.

 

And then, because they're teenage boys and it's easier to just move on, it was [almost] like the whole thing had never happened in the first place. Only they were closer now, so maybe not talking for six months was the best thing that could've happened to them.

(Except, y'know, maybe _not getting into a stupid fight in the first place_.)

On the upside for the Camps, the three most powerful half-blood boys in the world – although it could be argued (by Thalia, usually) that Thalia was more powerful than any of them – were probably safer for everyone as allies than as enemies (or even just awkward-non-friends).

Past that, though? Moving on, into the future?

It's just a question of not screwing up.

Er, again.

 

(For the record, while it doesn't end with Percy's nose broken again, he eventually asks Nico again to be a groomsman. But this time, he _also_ asks Jason. And, as stated, there is no nose-breaking. Only gentle, mostly playful shoulder-punching. And loud insults. And _maybe_ a very sincere argument that ends with “ _Seriously?_ Again?! No, you two are _not_ doing this again! Come back here!” and some remarkably violent smooching. Not that any of them ever mentioned that to Annabeth or Piper. Or Hazel, because Hazel would disapprove.)


End file.
